


Reading Book

by Teenage_Wildlife



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Fluff and Humor, Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler & Kaiba Seto Friendship, Kaiba Seto Has Issues, Kaiba Seto doesn't know how to read, M/M, Pre-Canon, Primary School, Seto and Joey are 9 years old, Slow Burn, but Joey help him, puppyshipping - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-05-27
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:02:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22992898
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teenage_Wildlife/pseuds/Teenage_Wildlife
Summary: They were assigned in pairs, Seto took his reading book and realized something.He couldn't read.
Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto
Comments: 2
Kudos: 16





	1. Start with the letter A

**Author's Note:**

> IMPORTANT!   
> Read before continuing:
> 
> 1)I don't know how education works in other countries so I draw on my own experience.
> 
> 2)My native language is not English so there may be spelling mistakes, if you see one let me know!.
> 
> Enjoy!

Seto's life was in decline, and the only thing that kept him sane was his younger brother, Mokuba. Just 9 years old and his life had gone like a roller coaster of instabilities that a child shouldn't go through. His mother died the moment mokuba was born, he loved his mother and promised to take care of Mokuba with his life because she gave her life for him to be born, and then his father, in the same way his father was hitting bottom because not long after his mother died he stopped attending kindergarten, now he just stayed home and never went back to school. His father still Loving them but Seto understood that his father wasn't well mentally, so it didn't take long to see that the poor man was hitting bottom, enough to crash, he still remembers the day a year ago when he returned home accompanied by Mokuba after going to a birthday of one of Seto's friends, when he arrived, there were two men he had seen little but nowhere his father, when he questioned their father's whereabouts. One of them gave the same look as the day his mother died.

"Oh" was all he could say.

Not long after he found out at his father's funeral that those two men were part of his family, they treated Seto and Mokuba with sadness and some grief, Mokuba never wanted to leave Seto and was afraid to be with all those people, because if they forced him he would start crying. Little by little all those people left and they didn't see them again. And again there were only those two men that he once saw and then Seto thought they were going to stay with them now that they didn't have parents.

How wrong he was. 

A week later, no, four days later, they were left in an orphanage. An old lady welcomed them, asked their names and gave them something to eat, they were in a recreation room playing and painting for maybe 2 hours, and he didn't see those two men again.

They were assigned to a room that had a bunk bed, a chair and a small desk. "Well" Seto thought, they were carrying their small belongings, clothes, Duel cards, and a stuffed animal belonging to Mokuba. A week later Seto was going to (again) school, perhaps no one had mentioned that Seto hadn't gone to school (or rather never gone to primary school) before and that he only knew basic things his father taught him such as adding, subtracting, something to multiply and divide. Oh, and something about writing.

At first it went well, Seto had been learning more and more, the school was a little difficult but he just thought it was because he wasn't used to it, he was doing his best and if he couldn't understand things, he asked and the teachers were always kind. Until, well, the month of reading came. It was the month in which he now focused on reading, improving your reading comprehension and even your spelling. They were assigned in pairs, and in the first weeks you would only read with your partner and they would answer the activities and in the last week they would be evaluated with a group reading. A day after this was announced, Seto noticed something. 

He couldn't read.

Well, he did know but just a few words, basic concepts and sentences like "John went to the store and... 6 apples... $12 each, How much did he pay?" In reality, they were sentence fragments, he used his dictionary to know what some words meant or to understand (more or less) how they were written but a dictionary doesn't speak and therefore doesn't say the pronunciation.  
He was assigned with a blond boy called Jonouchi, he had never talked to him, he was disastrous and talked a lot, he was annoying and always late for classes.  
On the first day when they sat together, Jonouchi threw himself noisily into his chair.

"Hello! , What's your name? Set, right?"Jonouchi settled down in the chair while lashing his backpack on his legs to search for his reading book.

"Uhm, my name is Seto, you're Jonouchi, aren't you?" 

"No! Well, yes! But don't call me that, tell me Joey"

"Why do you want me to tell you like that?" 

"Because it sounds great"

And Seto took out his book, and they opened the page they were told, 17. A reading of two pages not so full of words and signs, with many drawings referring to the reading and at the end came some questions to answer. After the teacher gave directions they could start reading and everyone did.

"Well, Seto, can you read them and answer them?, I need to do the math homework before the teacher asks for it, I forgot to take the area out of the triangle, circle and square." With this Jonou- Joey put up his red math notebook and started doing calculations. Seto picked up his book of readings and tried to read only to find that he could only understand a few words, he tried to read the title but it was difficult, he could barely gather enough letters to know what it said (he could only gather two words and none had coherence if he just put to his lot the meaning of everything). He silently took out his dictionary and suddenly felt embarrassed, What if it was based only on the abstract drawings that the reading had? What if he was wrong to answer questions and put something it wasn't? Would Joey laugh at him if he realized he couldn't read? He had to do something before Joey realized this.

"Joey" 

"yeaaaah?" He said without apart his eyes of his Notebook. 

"If you want I'll do your homework" and finally joey lifted his head. 

"Seriously?"

"Yes" 

"Wow, thank you!" Joey gave his notebook to Seto.

"Then I answer the questions, don't worry! They will be the best answers the teacher has ever read."

And with this Joey started reading. "You must love mathematics, right, Seto? , personally I like to read more it's fun because there are so many funny words"

[…]

After a tiring day at school and trying to pretend that he could read, Seto came to his room with Mokuba who was talking about a story they were given. 

Then he came up with an idea.

He could borrow some books from the playroom and start practicing, and pretend to teach Mokuba to tell him how to pronounce some words. He sneaked as fast as possible into the books section and grabbed one without seeing and left as fast as he could, waited until the night and a few minutes after Mokuba fell asleep he decided it was time to start learning.  
He sat at his little desk and took out the book.

The book he picked up was "beauty and the beast", it had few pages and all were full of large illustrations that left only room for small descriptions. I grab it and quietly try to read.

"On- once u-upon a time... ther was a ne- no, merchan...t, who livd in con-country... sid-id-e wit his doun–" he dropped the book and leaned back on the desk. 

Seto really died to know how to read.


	2. E is for effort

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Duel cards and reading, What can go wrong?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's been a long time since we saw each other, but better late than never lol   
> As always this may have errors, if you see one let me know!

He picks up the book for the fifth time and drops it.  
Seto's head has been working harder than it should and it has already started to hurt, he really tries and does it but the combined pain and shame are strong.  
Everything he can understand are scribbling, line and sticks.

Even Mokuba has started to keep up with the pace of reading, and he's proud of his great spelling skills (although of course, for a 5 year old, the most he can spell is paddle, rainbow and the occasional other thing), He can spend all day trying to spell anything that comes to his mind but it's impossible for Seto not to feel worse about it, of course he feels proud of Mokuba, if Mokuba is happy Seto is automatically happy too but that twinge in his mind everyday is because he knows he's not capable of it.

He can try to read a dictionary, he can consult someone about difficult words but when he can't consult simple words of basic knowledge, that's when he can start feeling unsure of himself.

Seto doesn't really understand how he can write, his mind goes into a strange trance when he writes and it stops when he stops writing, the letters start to warp just in that moment, obviously he understands some words and he can say them but never in a sentence because it becomes unreadable, sometimes when he can't keep up with the dictations he needs to turn to someone else's notes, he thinks he can read them even if it is in a low voice but all that comes out is strange hisses, stuttering and incomprehensible words.

_This is a disaster._

He knows that.

And all that's left is to transcribe the form of the letters one by one without even being sure there's a grammar behind it.

But he's been able to keep it up, he's motivated himself.

The reading sessions were a bit tortuous at this pace he always found one way or another to avoid reading, even if it was in a group, he just pretended read.

He continued like this for more than half a week, everything was going well despite the constant fear of being caught, but everything was pleasant. More so when Joey volunteered to read the stories, always with a characterization of the character, he would get exalted, gesture with his hands and face, and even joke constantly. And Seto always laughed with all these jokes, it was nice to have someone who loved with such passion something that tortured him daily but anyway Seto felt a little jealous because he was not yet able to read something so meaningful to Joey as a story.

He can only answer the activities and that's all he has left to do.

Not surprisingly, they were obviously going to be paired up in more classes than just reading stories; books also bring activities in pairs.

After a brief explanation from the teacher on the subject, examples and a quick read of the book (clearly given by the teacher), everyone worked, Joey always brings a smile to his face when he arrives at Seto's side even if he doesn't understand the subject or what he has to do, there is an emotion in Joey that doesn't avoid being passed on to Seto.

So Joey asks;

"So, what's your favorite book?" Joey turns his attention away from his book and goes to see Seto.

"Uh, I don't know, I don't really think I have a favorite." Seto doesn't look at it, he's more focused on what the last step of the water cycle was, because, well, they're in natural science class.

"You can't just say you don't have one, we all have a favorite!" Joey claims with his arms crossed.

"I don't have any books where I live, I guess there's not much to read" He lies.

"But even if you didn't have any more books, there's the book of readings! It has great stories, some more rare than others." Joey even takes his book out of the pile of books and notebooks that have been left on his desk and loosely put away, goes straight to the index and proceeds to read several titles.

"Look, there's the stone soup, Lucy and the monster, you should read that one, it's scary but great, there's The President's Hamster" and he could go on and on.

Seto has never read those stories, nor has anyone ever read them to him and he doesn't know how to convey that to Joey.

"My thing is not reading, I prefer to do other things" Seto's a little serious about saying that, but not serious enough for Joey to notice.

"Oh, I see! You're a movie guy!"

_Well, yes and no._

"Um, I don't think so. I really like watching them, but I don't think I'm a fan."

"Oh, but how do you spend your time?"

Seto proud of himself says "I play Duel Monsters"

Joey seems to have run out of air the moment his mouth made a big "O" because he immediately bends down, grabs his backpack and puts his two hands in his front pockets, pulls out some cards and puts them in Seto's hands.

Seto is surprised by that, he sees the cards that are no more than 2 to 4 levels and no more than 1800 of attack, the drawings are somewhat opaque.

Joey keeps flitting around in his backpack, looking for more cards.

"Can you tell me how many cards I gave you? I think I'm missing some."

Seto can count, _that's good_.

"You gave me six"

Joey stops his search momentarily, thinking as he raises his eyes upward.

"Oh, I'm missing another six!" And he keeps looking.

Joey gestures as he sings a kind of catchy song. For a moment, he seems to have given up, but he keeps going.

"Um, I don't know which ones I need, you want to tell me which ones I gave you?

Oh.

Seto can handle this, _right?_

"Ah, one has a green dragon, another a woman with purple hair and-"

"No no no, their names, I think I brought some repeated"

He can't do it. He tries to read them in his mind and decipher some words like Dragon, Green and swamp but there are others that connect the previous ones and he is not sure if he can say them. He begins to feel the weight of fear on him little by little as the seconds go by.

"Setoooo" Joey don't look up, he keeps looking towards his backpack and there's still that smile on his face

He is armed with courage even if he is not so sure. "The first is the Dragon of-" he pauses to understand the next word, but it becomes difficult, even though he has seen that word before, he jumps to the next one which is equally or more difficult to decipher.

Maybe he doesn't notice Joey's curious look at him because he's already embarrassed enough to feel even more. Joey doesn't say anything, it's just that funny tune on his face.

"Seto, can't you see?" Joey asks without even suspecting that's not the problem.

"I..." _How can he say it?_ "I can see."

"Are you sure?"

And he can't answer.

"If you have a vision problem, you should have said so. My sister can't see very well either, but she wears glasses. Don't you have any?"

He's too frustrated, it's not about his eyesight.

"I can see pretty well, just because I can't read a simple letter doesn't mean my eyesight is bad."

"Okaay, whatever you say."

Joey doesn't question again and continues his search.

Maybe he can afford to breathe again.   


[…]

He's not able to read Joey's Duel cards or any other.

But he is able to read his own Duel cards.

Seto had probably spent over 30 minutes trying to read his cards and looking up the meaning of the words and their pronunciation, memorizing them so he wouldn't read them again.   
They gather at recess, sitting down and away from all the screaming and playing of the other children.

Seto brings some of his Duel cards to school, and of course he shows them to Joey.

"This is Uraby, it has a good attack but I don't like its defense," explained Seto as he pointed to the colorful drawing on the card.

"It's incredible! Which is your strongest monster, I don't have enough to build a deck but the biggest one has 1800 attack and 1500 defense" Joey held Seto's card with one of his hands as excited as if it was a prize, the other one is busy holding his lunch. 

"It is this Goblin Strike Force" Seto paused. "But you know, I'd love to have a Blue-Eyes White Dragon."

"Great! I'm pretty sure you'll have one, or even three!" Joey looked at him momentarily, maybe he didn't even know there was a monster with that name but something in the excitement he said it, just that dazzling smile and those beautiful closed eyes.

They made Seto's strong heartbeat definitely not for his precious Blue-Eyed Dragon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Now I think there will be too many questions so let us begin:  
> Why is the chapter so boring? Well, I was writing it as I went along, it had the ending that was supposed to be the beginning so I had to restructure the whole thing.
> 
> Is it possible to write without knowing how to read? Yes, I had to research this, this condition is called Alexia pure or without agraphia, there are even Japanese cases!, this is caused by an injury but, this doesn't mean that Seto has suffered any accident. 
> 
> These stories, do exist? Yes, I took them from my fourth year reading book, good memories.
> 
> If there is another doubt and again any mistake or anything else, let me know!   
> You can leave a comment, or send me a message to my Tumblr wea-telefonica-1, I opened a Twitter ass_were (don't ask me why for the name).  
> We'll be reading soon!

**Author's Note:**

> i don't know how long it will take to update but I will make sure it is as soon as possible.
> 
> My first story about yugioh and my first story in English. I hope you like it!


End file.
